


I Can See You Staring Back

by mintpearlvoice



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Oculus (2014)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 01:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1492402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintpearlvoice/pseuds/mintpearlvoice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tracking down a misplaced weapon, the Doctor meets a woman with an uncanny resemblance to Amy Pond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can See You Staring Back

During the Time War, apparently, a dangerous weapon went missing, a nanotechnological parasite that always takes the form of something very beautiful and very old. President Romana dispatches the Doctor to find it.  
Exiting from the TARDIS, he takes it all in at once: the dessicated plants, the housepet’s corpse. The girl with long red hair and vulnerable hazel eyes, staring at her own reflection, mesemerized. The weighted pendulum about to fall.  
“Amy!” he shouts.  
He knocks her out of the way just in time; the glass breaks just above their heads. He shakes shards from the illusion of his hair, keeping her pinned to the ground.

Her eyes widen. “Oh, god,” she whispers, terrified. The woman’s accent is pure Midwest, sending a thrill of fascination through his hearts. “What the hell are you?”  
At once he knows she’s seeing his true form, six-eyed and salamander-skinned. Nothing’s wrong with his perception filter. There must be something wrong with her.  
Taking him by surprise, she scrambles to her feet. He lets her get up, but keeps hold of his arm.  
There’s a yell of pain from the other room, then a gunshot; from the way her posture weakens as she whips her head around, he senses that the person who’s been harmed is one of her human littermates.

“You can’t go to him. It’s too late for him; Amy, we have to get you out.”  
With a terrified, almost hysterical little laugh, she allows herself to be led into the TARDIS.

“Who are you? What year is it?”  
“I’m Kaylie Russell. It’s two thousand and fourteen. I took a customized major in parapsychology at the University of (). The Lasser Glass killed my family. My brother is dead.”  
Name, rank, and serial number. As if she’s just been through a war.  
She sways on her feet, tears unconsciously trickling down her cheeks. “My brother is dead.” Kaylie moves to rub at her eyes, but stops and lowers her hands, as if afraid of the damage her nails could do.  
He guides her to a chair. “I’m going to need to examine you for injuries. Is that all right?  
Her laugh is weak, but unmistakably Amelia. “Don’t vivisect me, thanks.”  
“My brother is dead, the Lasser Glass exterminated my entire family, and I’ve been kidnapped by an alien. I don’t think I can handle anything else.”  
“You’re safe now, I promise. I’ll look after you.” He barely keeps herself from calling her Amelia.  
Cut lip, cut tongue, self-inflicted scratches, missing fingernails. He doesn’t want to shock her with too much alien technology, so he gets a bottle of antiseptic, pours it onto a cotton ball, and cleans the scrapes. Internal injuries may be more severe. Neurological and psychological injuries…  
“Oh, god, I’m thirsty,” Kaylie says suddenly. “I think I’m going to pass out- if I don’t throw up in first. Can you get me something to drink?”  
He returns a moment later, as if afraid of leaving it alone.

It tastes terrible; reflexively, she leans over and spits it out.  
The glass of water is on the table. The bottle of antiseptic is in her hand.  
She flings it away. “What’s happening to me? I want to die.” The room before her swims. Is it tears, or her own flawed perception again? Unable to trust her sight, she closes her eyes, tucks her knees to her chest, and begins to sob.

“Kaylie Russell.” He smells as clean as the forest after a storm, and there’s something so soothing about the coolness of his skin against her own feverish heat.  
The rim of a glass bumps up against her lips; instinctively, she jerks her head away. “What are you giving me?”  
“It’s water. It’s just water, you’re perfectly safe. Just take one sip.”  
Taking one sip of it is like eating just one potato chip. The best potato chip in the entire world. Fuck, she had been thirsty, and the water is crisp and pure and more satisfying than anything she’s ever ate. Her head clears as she drinks, pulling away the curtain between her wavering mind and the profound abyss of her grief. My brother’s dead, and I may be insane.  
Also, aliens are real.  
“Kaylie, don’t drink it all at once. You’ll give yourself a stomachache.”  
His caring and concern seemed so absurdly normal that she almost laughed. Still, she obeyed, because common sense was always common sense. And while Kaylie no longer believed in herself, and she damn well didn’t believe in God, she would always believe in common sense.  
“That’s it… slow sips.” He rubbed her back; she leaned unconsciously into the touch.  
When she finished drinking, he took the glass from her hand.

“How are you feeling?”

“That depends on where I am. You called yourself a doctor; I could be in a facility for the criminally insane, in which case I’m sure that anything I say will and can be used against me.”  
“One, I’m called the Doctor, not a doctor. And two…”  
“Yeah?”  
“I believe in you.”

She sits up very straight, regarding him with an owlish intensity. "Tell me everything you know about the Lasser Glass."

The Oculus was designed to be used as a weapon of psychological warfare against enemies by my people, the Gallifreyans; it attacks the brain through the optic nerve, producing hallucinations and dehydrating the () cortex, which is responsible for logical thought.  
"Take out my eyes."  
"What?"  
"You heard me. Just do it. You're an alien, you have the technology. Cut them out."  
"If I do that, the neuroparasites will just move to a different area. You've already gotten used to not being able to trust your sight; how would you like it if it was aural hallucinations you had to fight off, or touch, or taste?"  
"Then I have to learn to live with it… until I accidentally kill myself."  
She looks so grave and solemn, so accepting, like a just-loomed warrior.

“As long as you’re with me, I’ll do my best to keep you safe.”  
She shifts in her seat. “What if I told you I wanted to go home?”  
“There’s nothing for you on Earth. Your family is dead, and you’ve been declared clinically dead as well.”  
“Where would we go?”  
“Wherever and whenever you want.”  
“Whenever?”  
His smile is a beautiful riddle. “It travels in time.” And then, as if nothing else matters more to him in the world: “Come along, Kaylie Russell. Please.” The desperation in his eyes is at odds with how short a time they’ve known each other for, but then everything becomes clear to her.  
He called me Amy when we first met, she remembers. So there’s someone else who looks like me, another redheaded girl about my size. He’s the kind of alien who keeps pets, and I’m a replacement goldfish.  
He wants to look at me and pretend I’m her. He wants something from me, and it has nothing to do with who I am. You’re using me, Doctor, but it’s a fair bargain. I’ll be using you too.  
If I can go back in time, I can destroy the Lasser Glass. I can stop the deaths of my parents before they even occur.  
I'll have revenge- and peace- at last.


End file.
